Anticoagulants are drugs that help prevent or stop blood clots. They are prescribed to people at a high risk of getting clots, to decrease their chances of developing or occurring serious or severe conditions like: strokes and heart attacks.
A blood clot is a seal created or produce by the blood to stop bleeding from wounds. While they are useful in preventing bleeding, they can block blood arteries or veins and stop blood flowing to organs like: the brain, heart or lungs if they form in the wrong place.
Anticoagulants functioned by interrupting the process involved in the formation or production of blood clots. They are sometime known as “blood-clots. They are sometimes known as “blood thinner” drugs, although they don’t actually make the blood thinner.
Although they are used for similar purposes, anticoagulants used or recommend by healthcare experts for similar purposes, anticoagulants are different to antiplatelet medicines, such as low-dose aspirin and clopidogrel.
The most commonly prescribed or recommend anticoagulant by doctors is warfarin. Newer types of anticoagulants are also available and are becoming rapidly common. These are:
Warfarin anticoagulants and the newer alternatives are use in the form of tablet or capsules. There is also an anticoagulant called (heparin) that can be given to the patient in the form of injection.
Anticoagulants uses in:
If a blood clot blocks the circulation of blood through a blood arteries or vessel, the affected part of the body will become starved of oxygen and will stop functioning properly.
Depending on where the clot create, this can lead to serious or severe problems like:
